Post by swamprat on Feb 14, 2014 16:36:45 GMT -6

NASA solves mystery of 'jelly donut' on Mars

Published February 14, 2014FoxNews.com

It was a complete unknown -- it was a rolling stone.

A mystery rock that appeared before NASA's Opportunity rover in late January -- and bore a strange resemblance to a jelly donut -- is no more than a common piece of stone that bounced in front of the cameras, NASA said Friday.

The strange rock was first spied on Jan. 8, in a spot where nothing had sat a mere two weeks earlier. Dubbed "Pinnacle Island" by NASA scientists, it was only about 1.5 inches wide. But the rock's odd appearance -- white-rimmed and red-centered, not unlike a jelly donut -- made many sit up and take notice.Now researchers with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology have finally cleared up the mystery.Yep. It's a rock.

"Once we moved Opportunity a short distance, after inspecting Pinnacle Island, we could see directly uphill an overturned rock that has the same unusual appearance," said Opportunity Deputy Principal Investigator Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis. "We drove over it. We can see the track. That's where Pinnacle Island came from."

Examination of Pinnacle Island revealed high levels of elements such as manganese and sulfur, suggesting these water-soluble ingredients were concentrated in the rock by the action of water.

Post by auntym on Feb 19, 2014 16:12:32 GMT -6

Astrobiologist Richard Hoover spent more than forty six years working at NASA. In that time, he established the Astrobiology Research Group at the NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, and became internationally known for his research on microfossils in meteorites. Hoover has published many papers in which he asserts the discovery of extraterrestrial life in meteorites.

Hoover no longer works for NASA, but he continues his controversial research and is currently an astrobiologist at Athens State University and a visiting research professor with the Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham. Hoover discussed his research in a lecture at the 2014 International UFO Congress. At the event, Hoover sat down with journalist Lee Speigel of the Huffington Post. Speigel asked Hoover to explain what it is that convinces him that life is not restricted to Earth. Hoover responded, “I am absolutely convinced that life is not restricted to the planet Earth because I have found the remains of lifeforms that are absolutely, conclusively extraterrestrial.”

Speigel pointed out that Hoover’s findings have met with harsh skepticism by critics. But Hoover stands behind his research. He replied, “These critics will not debate me in an open scientific forum. I would be perfectly willing to go to the Cosmos Club in Washington, to go to any university and have an academic debate and scientific discussion.”

Former NASA Scientist Richard Hoover shares revelations with journalist Lee Speigel from the Huffington Post. Hoover talks about the fact that someone may have destroyed evidence of life on Mars. This took place at the Open Minds 2014 International UFO Congress and Film Festival in Fountain Hills Arizona

Post by auntym on Feb 28, 2014 2:26:59 GMT -6

Naming landmarks on Mars isn't just for scientists and rover drivers anymore.

Starting Wednesday, anybody with an Internet connection and a few dollars to spare can give a moniker to one of the Red Planet's 500,000 or so unnamed craters, as part of a mapping project run by the space-funding company Uwingu.

"This is the first people's map of Mars, where anybody can play," said Uwingu CEO Alan Stern, a former NASA science chief who also heads the space agency's New Horizons mission to Pluto. "It's a very social thing." [7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars]

Putting your stamp on Mars isn't free. Naming the smallest craters will set you back $5, with prices going up as crater size increases. Uwingu will use the money raised by the project — which could be more than $10 million, if people name every available Martian crater — to fund grants in space exploration, research and education, which is the company's stated chief purpose.

"We're developing this grant fund — the Uwingu fund — for people who've been hit by sequestration," Stern told Space.com. "There's nothing like it right now. They have no place to go; it's either NASA, NSF [the National Science Foundation] or you're out of luck."

Stern hopes the effort will succeed in naming all of Mars' cataloged craters by the end of 2014, helping to fill in a lot of gaps in Red Planet cartography. (The company aims to solicit names for other Red Planet features, such as canyons and mountains, in the future.)

The project could also provide a sort of cultural snapshot, revealing what people are thinking about and what's important to them at this moment, he added.

"It's like taking a picture of ourselves," Stern said. "What will people put? Will there be a lot of craters named for politicians? For artists, for relatives, for places on Earth? Sports teams?"

The crater-naming project is not a contest, working instead on a first-come, first-served basis. Names will be accepted immediately and will remain approved unless Uwingu officials later determine them to be profane or otherwise offensive.

Stern stressed that Uwingu (whose name means "sky" in Swahili) is not trying to supplant other Mars maps, such as the one generated by the United States Geological Survey. The 15,000 Red Planet features whose names have already been approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) will be grandfathered into Uwingu's base map, officials said.

The Uwingu project also will not seek approval from the IAU, which has traditionally authorized "official" names for celestial bodies and their features. Rather, the crater monikers will be informal or popular names, Stern said. (Unofficial names can still come into wide usage: "The Milky Way," for example, is not IAU-sanctioned.)

This is not Uwingu's first foray into celestial-object naming. The company has also raised funds by asking the public to choose monikers for the thousands of exoplanets and exoplanet candidates being discovered around the galaxy, including Alpha Centauri Bb, the closest alien world to Earth.

IAU officials expressed disapproval of these previous projects, asserting last year that the exoplanet-naming efforts misled people into thinking they were helping select officially recognized names. But Stern fought back hard against this claim at the time, saying that Uwingu has always made clear that the projects sought only to choose "people's choice" monikers.

The Siding Spring comet is on track to make a close pass by Mars on Oct. 19, 2014, and now NASA is expressing some concern with its trajectory.

According to the latest predictions, the comet would pose a danger to delicate instruments on a series of nearby Mars orbiters. As many as five orbiters circling Mars will be getting a close look at comet (C/2013-A1) as it speeds by at a near 1.3 million miles per hour. The comet is on a once-in-a-million route around the sun and is projected to pass within 82,460 miles of Mars.

While the comet’s path allows scientists a rare and unique opportunity, the comet flyby comes with a fair amount of trepidation, as well. The dust created by the comet’s tail represents a potentially serious risk to the flotilla of spacecraft within the vicinity. The date of the comet’s arrival is anticipated to be the day of closest encounter to the crafts, and scientists are, admittedly, a little worried.

“This is a first-time comet; we haven’t seen it before,” says Richard Zurek, chief scientist for the Mars Program Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “This is a very exciting opportunity. But it is one of those things where you go: Oh, this is great. And then you go: Wait a minute; do I need to worry about this comet?”

Currently, engineers and scientists are working to find a way to minimize risks to the orbiters. The Hubble Space Telescope has also been enlisted to help in the assessment efforts.

Siding Springs will approach Mars nearly head-on. This means the velocity of the comet’s dust particles will be much greater than if the two bodies were moving in the same general direction.

Post by skywalker on Apr 1, 2014 7:41:48 GMT -6

Breakthrough technology is about to turn science fiction into reality. Join the first public expedition to Mars to search for signs of water and, maybe, life. Teams depart via space shuttle beginning in 2016 for a journey that will last 300 to 600 days, depending on the orbit of both planets at the time of departure.

Reserve your spot on Searching for Life on Mars today to become one of the first Earthwatch astronauts. Spaces are extremely limited.

Has Earthwatch gone nuts? They usually organize volunteer scientific expeditions to do educational research in different places around the world, like counting birds in the Galapagos Islands or rescuing Cheetahs in Africa or digging on an archaeological dig somewhere. They've never attempted any type of expedition of this scale or magnitude. Don't know how they would plan on pulling it off either since our shuttle fleet was retired years ago.

I suppose it could be a mistake...or somebody's dumb idea of a joke...but Earthwatch isn't normally given to doing such things. They are usually very serious people in a very serious organization.

Of course I guess it is also entirely possible that it might have something to do with...APRIL FOOLS!!

I wonder how many people around the country are actually going to fall for that one?

Astrobiologist Richard Hoover spent more than forty six years working at NASA. In that time, he established the Astrobiology Research Group at the NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, and became internationally known for his research on microfossils in meteorites. Hoover has published many papers in which he asserts the discovery of extraterrestrial life in meteorites.

Hoover no longer works for NASA, but he continues his controversial research and is currently an astrobiologist at Athens State University and a visiting research professor with the Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham. Hoover discussed his research in a lecture at the 2014 International UFO Congress. At the event, Hoover sat down with journalist Lee Speigel of the Huffington Post. Speigel asked Hoover to explain what it is that convinces him that life is not restricted to Earth. Hoover responded, “I am absolutely convinced that life is not restricted to the planet Earth because I have found the remains of lifeforms that are absolutely, conclusively extraterrestrial.”

Speigel pointed out that Hoover’s findings have met with harsh skepticism by critics. But Hoover stands behind his research. He replied, “These critics will not debate me in an open scientific forum. I would be perfectly willing to go to the Cosmos Club in Washington, to go to any university and have an academic debate and scientific discussion.”

Former NASA Scientist Richard Hoover shares revelations with journalist Lee Speigel from the Huffington Post. Hoover talks about the fact that someone may have destroyed evidence of life on Mars. This took place at the Open Minds 2014 International UFO Congress and Film Festival in Fountain Hills Arizona

DISCLAIMER: If we weren't half crazy we wouldn't be hereBut then they'd just have to find another place to keep us

Post by paulette on Apr 1, 2014 12:00:18 GMT -6

I keep thinking about our little Mars visualization exercise - that we all saw dwindling water and life in and around it. Mine in particular had some pretty aggressive swimming predators. I often think about how the Creataceous seas might have been - when trilobites reigned supreme. They were basically like armored marine roaches that reached up to a foot long. Some probably scuttled around on the bottom. But there were too many of them to be supported only by naturally deceased food. I'm thinking some of them took a more active part in gaining a meal. I can imagine going into a Creataceous sea with bare skin and being swarmed by them, much as we see pirahnas do in those documentaries. Not a pretty thought. I also am interested in the documented fact that as puddles containing tadpoles dry up, the oxygen drops, a proportion of them turn into cannibals and begin gobbling up their smaller relatives. It is a matter of survival - the slower developing plant eating tadpoles aren't going to make it anyway and so the species will go on. I would conjure that as water dried up on Mars, a similar evolution might occur. What survived to the last, were probably the most effective at surviving.

So...why would NASA destroy fossils that were collected - as Mr. Hoover claims?

I can only conjure again that there are folks in high places that might be incredibly threatened by the idea that God didn't just create Earth and the Garden and all JUST FOR PEOPLE. So...what if there are a lot of life forms scattered through the galaxy? That kind of broadens the field...

Post by auntym on May 16, 2014 13:52:40 GMT -6

The adventurous primate Curious George is heading to Mars for the first time in a special TV episode of the cartoon airing Monday (May 19).

While Curious George has been to space before, this is the first time he is exploring the Red Planet. In the episode, "Red Planet Monkey," George needs to help engineers on Earth figure out what is making the rover's controls stick. The primate finds himself on an amazing adventure to Mars with his friend, the Man with the Yellow Hat. You can watch preview the new episode of "Curious George" on Space.com. www.space.com/25901-curious-george-goes-to-mars-new-episode-preview.html

"'Red Planet Monkey' is just the latest of the inquisitive cartoon monkey's adventures in space, which date back to the very beginning of the space race," said Robert Pearlman, editor of the space history news website collectSPACE.com, a Space.com partner. "In just the fourth book in the now iconic 'Curious George' series, creators Margaret and H.A. Rey told the story of how their title character ended up becoming the first monkey in space. [Curious George in Space: Plucky Primate's Cosmic Adventures (Gallery )] www.space.com/25898-curious-george-space-pictures-gallery.html

As NASA focuses considerable effort on a mission to send humans to Mars in the coming decades, psychology researchers are looking at what types of personalities would work the best together on such a long trip.

Now, a new study finds that on long-term space missions — such as missions to Mars, which could take as long as three years to complete a round trip — having an extrovert on board could have several disadvantages.

For example, extroverts tend to be talkative, but their gregarious nature may make them seem intrusive or demanding of attention in confined and isolated environments over the long term, the researchers say.

"You're talking about a very tiny vehicle, where people are in very isolated, very confined spaces," said study researcher Suzanne Bell, an associate professor of psychology at DePaul University in Chicago. "Extroverts have a little bit of a tough time in that situation."

If one person on a crew always wants to talk, while the other members are less social, "it could actually get pretty annoying," in that environment Bell said. (Remember George Clooney's character in the movie "Gravity"?) [10 Fitness Apps: Which Is Best for Your Personality?]

The researchers concluded that extroverts could potentially be a "liability" on these missions.

Extroverts and teams

NASA is interested in a number of issues related to planning long-term space missions, including how to put together the most compatible teams for the missions.Food for Mars: A Daunting Challenge

In the new study, which is funded by NASA, Bell and her colleagues reviewed previous research on teams who lived in environments similar to those of a long-term space mission, including simulated spacecraft missions of more than 100 days, as well as missions in Antarctica.

Typically, extroverts— who tend to be sociable, outgoing, energetic and assertive — are good to have on work teams because they speak up and engage in conversations about what needs to be done, which is good for planning, Bell said. And because of their social interactions, extroverts tend to have a good understanding of who knows what on a team (such as who the experts in a certain field are), which helps foster coordination.

NASA is thinking hard about what the first boots to set foot on Mars will look like.

Getting astronauts to the Red Planet is the chief long-term goal of the agency's human spaceflight program, so NASA is developing many technologies to help make that happen. For instance, there's the Space Launch System mega-rocket, the Orion crew capsule and a new line of prototype spacesuits called the Z-series.

"We are heading for Mars; that's what is the end goal right now for the suit," said Phil Stampinato of ILC Dover, the Delaware-based company that won NASA contracts to design and build the first two iterations of the Z-series, the Z-1 and Z-2. [NASA's Z-2 Spacesuit in Pictures: Futuristic Astronaut Suit Design Photos]

"So, everything that's done to develop this suit is headed for a Mars mission, even if there is an asteroid mission or a lunar mission prior to that," Stampinato said during a presentation with NASA's Future In-Space Operations working group on June 4.

A new type of suit

NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station currently don a bulky suit called the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) whenever they need to venture outside the orbiting lab. The EMU has performed well for decades, but its utility is pretty much limited to operations in microgravity.

"It's a very, very poor walking suit," NASA spacesuit engineer Amy Ross said in a video released by the space agency.

The Z-series suits, on the other hand, are designed to be more flexible, with a wider variety of uses — including ambling about on Mars and other planetary bodies.

"We're trying to design [the new suit] to accommodate both improved microgravity EVA [extravehicular activity] capability as well as surface capability," Ross said.

For example, new bearings in the Z-1's shoulder, waist, hip, upper leg and ankles allow for increased leg movement and fine foot placement, she said.

The images for paannama were obtained by the rover’s 34-millimeter Mast Camera. The mosaic, which stretches about 30,000 pixels width, includes 134 images, all taken on Sol 647.

You can see previous interactive paannamas from Andrew of of Curiosity’s images here.

And in case you missed it, here’s Curiosity’s latest “Selfie”:

NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover captures a selfie to mark a full Martian year — 687 Earth days — spent exploring the Red Planet. Curiosity Self-Portrait was taken at the ‘Windjana’ Drilling Site in April and May 2014 using the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of the roboic arm. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Post by swamprat on Sept 12, 2014 12:07:52 GMT -6

Mars rover Curiosity reaches key destination; 'new science ahead!'

By Suzanne Presto, CNNFri September 12, 2014

(CNN) -- After roving across more than five miles of the Red Planet's sometimes rough terrain, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has reached its primary destination: the base of a Martian mountain in the middle of a vast, deep crater.

Curiosity's Twitter feed blared news of this triumphant arrival with the post, "I'm all about that base. Reached the base layer of Mt Sharp. New science ahead!"

Scientists chose Mount Sharp as the rover's destination long before the roving lab launched from Cape Canaveral in November 2011 and touched down in August 2012.

The mountain's layers are essentially records of the different chapters in the environmental evolution of Mars.

Living up to its name, Curiosity explored the crater floor as it made its way to the base of Mount Sharp.It's already solved its primary mission objective, which is to determine whether the Martian environment could have been habitable to microorganisms. That answer is yes.

NASA says Curiosity found evidence on Gale Crater's floor that a lake bed existed billions of years ago that offered fresh water, key ingredients for life and a source of energy for microbes.

Like all great journeys, the trip to this mountain was not without unexpected twists and turns.

Earlier this year, Curiosity's team members had to change the rover's route because sharp rocks were poking holes into four of the rover's six wheels.

Post by swamprat on Sept 12, 2014 19:25:50 GMT -6

NASA Defends Science Plan for Mars Rover Curiosity

By Rod Pyle, Space.com Contributor September 12, 2014

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA is staunchly defending the science plans for its flagship Mars rover Curiosity in the wake of a recent senior-level review that at times harshly criticized the mission's science operations.Mission scientists announced Thursday (Sept. 11) that the car-size Curiosity rover has reached the base of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-high (5 kilometers) mountain rising from the center of the rover's Gale Crater landing site. Curiosity had been driving toward the mountain since it landed on Mars in 2012.

NASA officials lauded the success so far of Curiosity's $2.5 billion mission. However, they also responded to criticism raised in the recent NASA Planetary Senior Review Panel report, which NASA commissioned to help allocate financial resources for seven planetary missions, including Curiosity's Mars exploration. Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary science, was quick to point out Curiosity's early success, citing the rover's discovery that Mars was once a habitable world in the ancient past — a key mission goal. The rover landed in August 2012 to begin a two-year primary mission.

"It immediately hit the jackpot," Green said with enthusiasm during the news conference here at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Curiosity explored Yellowknife Bay and found that it was in an ancient lake-bed environment that several billion years ago offered fresh water and all the key ingredients for life and a chemical source for microbes, if indeed any existed at that time."

But the NASA-commissioned report was less enthusiastic. The NASA Planetary Senior Review Panel, chaired by Clive Neal of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, gave Curiosity's Mars Science Laboratory mission low marks for scientific return, placing the rover toward the bottom of the seven missions under review.While all seven missions were ultimately approved for ongoing funding, the panel was not upbeat about Curiosity's prospects during the mission extension. The panel stated that the recently released plan for the next two years of Curiosity's operations on Mars "lacked specific scientific questions and testable hypotheses," and suggested that the mission should do more drilling and less driving to justify the continued funding of $155 million.

The panel's report also pointed out that the team intended to drill just eight samples in the upcoming funding period — a plan that "the panel considered a poor science return for such a large investment." The report went on to be specifically critical of Curiosity rover project scientist John Grotzinger, complaining that he was present only by phone for one round of discussion, and sent a deputy to respond to the next. "This left the panel with the impression that they were too big to fail," the report added.Green responded to the latter comment by pointing out that Grotzinger had discussed the situation in advance with NASA management.

"We had already approved John to be at [another] particular activity," Green said, adding that for whatever reason, the review panel "either didn't receive the information or didn't understand that."

When queried about the report's assertions that the number of drill samples was insufficient, Grotzinger said: "When you get that drill out, there is always a risk. So we would rather take an approach that we drill less, protecting it."

Grotzinger added that "the fickle nature of the preservation of organic matter is probably best handled by drilling a greater diversity of samples a fewer number of times." Curiosity's drill, like its wheels and the onboard instrumentation, is a "consumable," meaning that it has a limited life span, he added.Green further responded to multiple questions about the critical portions of the report by saying that it was not something authored or edited by NASA, and that it was from an independent review panel.

"We don't filter their comments; we don't edit them out; we don't black out their opinions. We [solicited them], we got them and we're acting on them," Green said.

Among the other NASA planetary missions included in the panel's review were the flagship Cassini spacecraft currently exploring Saturn, as well as lunar orbital programs and other Mars missions.

"For me, the top recommendation is really how important these missions are as we move forward," Green said Referring to the recently granted mission extension to Mount Sharp, Grotzinger noted that the science team's current "go-to" mission design was working well. In that "go-to" approach, a target science destination can be miles away from a rover's initial landing zone. A similar approach is expected for NASA's planned 2020 Mars rover mission, which will borrow much of its design from Curiosity.

"It's all about risk versus reward," Grotzinger said. "Mars 2020 will have to go through the same thing, and 'go-to' will be a very big deal. Landing ellipses will get smaller, but the best geology will always be in places that are outside of those safe landing spots. We have just proved the 'go-to' concept is valid."After two years on Mars, Grotzinger summed up Curiosity's progress by saying that the rover's science phase is shifting into a new, and higher, gear.

"The next phase of research for Curiosity on Mars can now begin," he said. "We have finally arrived at the far frontier that we have sought for so long."

Post by jokelly on Oct 7, 2014 14:23:37 GMT -6

Nature does make square rocks and rocks in about every shape imaginable. Some of the formations on our own planet are gorgeous and amazing. Much prettier than the Martian landscape. Yes..I believe there was life there..once long ago but that is just MY opinion. It does take wind and countless years to make most of these formations. Still..some are very 'square'. People are seeing all sorts of things on Mars..but the thing is..there is no way to prove or disprove any of it.

Post by swamprat on Oct 9, 2014 19:23:57 GMT -6

A comet will give Mars a historically close shave next weekend, and NASA aims to be ready for the dramatic cosmic event.

The space agency has already trained a number of its science assets on Comet Siding Spring, which will zoom within 87,000 miles (139,500 kilometers) of Mars on Oct. 19 — about one-third the distance between Earth and the moon. And NASA's fleet of Red Planet orbiters and rovers will be watching on the big day, studying the comet and its influence on Mars' atmosphere.

"On October 19, we're going to observe an event that happens maybe once every million years," Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary science division, said during a news conference today (Oct. 9). "We're getting ready for a spectacular set of observations."

Comet Siding Spring, also known as C/2013 A1, was discovered in 2013 by astronomer Rob McNaught using Australia's Siding Spring Observatory. The comet is making its first trip through the inner solar system from the frigid, faraway Oort Cloud, which lies about 50,000 astronomical units from the sun. (One astronomical unit, or AU, is the average distance between Earth and the sun — about 93 million miles, or 150 million km).

Because Siding Spring has never been "heat-treated" before, the incoming comet likely remains largely unchanged since its formation 4.6 billion years ago, researchers said. So studying its composition and behavior should provide clues about the conditions that existed at the birth of the solar system.

Post by auntym on Oct 10, 2014 14:15:59 GMT -6

By James Rogers / Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogersPublished October 08, 2014FoxNews.com

Existing medical techniques are laying the foundations for an ambitious research project to send astronauts into a deep sleep on a six-month journey to Mars, according to the engineer leading the study.

"There's technology being used in the medical community that could support this - there's a wealth of data out there to support it," John Bradford, president of Atlanta-based SpaceWorks, told FoxNews.com. "It's a big step, but it could be adopted for space flight."

The NASA-funded study began 12 months ago, and conjures up images of science fiction - putting astronauts into a deep sleep, or torpor, during the long six-month journey to Mars.

“I don’t think that we could go to Mars without something like this technology,” Bradford said. Putting the crew into a deep sleep, he explained, would significantly reduce the amount of supplies and infrastructure needed to support the long space journey, from food to onboard living space.

The study predicts that putting a spacecraft’s crew into torpor, or stasis state, would cut the mission requirements from 400 tons to 220 tons of equipment and supplies.

Bradford told FoxNews.com that the torpor could be achieved by a technique called therapeutic hypothermia, which is already used in hospitals, albeit for a much shorter time period.

Therapeutic, or protective, hypothermia lowers a patient’s body temperature to reduce the risk of tissue injury following, say, a cardiac arrest when blood flow is limited.

In the thermal management system envisaged by SpaceWorks, a tube inserted into an astronaut’s nasal cavity will emit a cooled gas, lowering their temperature by about 10 degrees. Low-dose drugs will also be administered to suppress their shiver reflex and ease their passage into a deep sleep.

spotless38: Iam back after a long break . What a couple of years I had . After what had happened I lost my brother and had to bury him and then I had caught that type A flue and I was a very sick puppy I also needed blood for the loss of it .Jul 7, 2018 13:30:41 GMT -6

lois: Very Happy to see you Ron. Missed you. Glad you are doing better now. Sorry for your lost. I did not know your brother had passed. hugs loisJul 10, 2018 0:52:45 GMT -6

lois: I picked up my phone a few days ago and I looked at the name of the caller. Boy was I surprise. It has been a couple of years. So good to hear your voice Ron. Hope you make it a habit again. love and hugs .Aug 15, 2018 23:21:38 GMT -6

leia77: Spotless, I am glad that you are feeling better and welcome back! I too am back from a long time away...Aug 31, 2018 2:08:32 GMT -6

jcurio: I am much relieved to see that you have been on here, Spotless! I hope that things are going much better for you now Sept 19, 2018 16:46:42 GMT -6